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HomeMy WebLinkAboutEarly Education II Panel Group 7GROUP 7 THERESA PICKETT AMBER GINTHER Pickett Ginther- SHIRLEY PFANNSTIEL MARY ANNA FRANZE PATSY Patricia BOUGHTON Early Education 7/31/96 Group 7 Moderator: Judy LeUnes Interviewees: Theresa Pickett, Amber Ginther, Shirley Pfannstiel, Mary Anna Franze, Patsy Boughton JL: Good morning, everyone. Give us your name. SP: Oh, I'm Shirley Barron Pfannstiel. OK. JL: I'm Judy LeUnes. I teach fifth grade in College Station, and I've been involved in some of the activities at the Parks department and community centers. I've been involved in as a ... I guess on the advisory boards. And as a teacher, of course I'm really interested in the kids having an appreciation for the history of College Station and understanding of the strong roots we have here. I recognize a lot of your last names and some of the maiden names that you've mentioned. You know, as a new person, I was sitting next to a lady in the other room, and she said, "Well, how long have you been here ?" And I said, "Oh, about 25 years." And she said, "Well, that isn't very long." And I thought, it seems like a long time to me. But, she's been here for sixty years, so I understand where she was coming from. Anyway, I was very excited to be asked to work with this. It was a little scary, though. I was worried y'all wouldn't talk. I don't think that's going to be a problem. We just need to make sure that everyone talks one at a time. And, though the topic is Early Education, any story that you think about, we're not limited to that. Because they're going to take all of these and, even though there are many different topics like business and transportation, and home life and so forth that will be put 1 in this book, most of my questions are going to mainly be centered around the education. Though, we can throw all the questions out if ya'll decide that you want to talk about something else, that's fine, too. Lauren Rass is going to be Videotaping us. And that's mainly so when they go back and transcribe, if there's a question about who said what, the transcriber can look at the Videotape. Also, these will all be kept for Oral History if someone wants to sit down and listen to these tapes for some reason. That's one of the reasons that you sign these sheets, that it becomes the property of College Station. Mrs. Kling will be doing the Audio work for us today, and she's a former secretary. She says that she's going to be taking notes down. And, I think she's got the hardest job, so I think we ought to ... If she says, "Wait a minute, ladies." Then, you know, we'll stop and slow down a little bit. Do y'all have any questions? SP: What's the end product to this going to be? JL: Well, I'm sure y'all have seen this book that Mr. Lancaster spoke about, and this has the history of College Station. Pat, I know you were involved in this, and I use it in my classroom, but I went back through the last few days, and focused on the education part so as y'all mention things, you know, I can sound like I know a little bit. NU: Is that College Station people? JL: Yes, that's College Station. W: There's not one on Wellborn in there, is there? The depot? JL: I don't remember, but there's some pictures of the school, and the teachers and the kids... W: My grandson has been real interested in wanting a picture of it, and I know I had one somewhere. PA JL: Yeah, I'm sure. NV: Because when my brother died and they sent his body back, I remember taking pictures at the depot that day. JL: Well, you might ask Gracie Calbert, the lady that's the director here, because she's gathering pictures. And some of the things that you all brought today, certain pictures that you'd like to have duplicated, they can add to their stack that they're putting together. One of the parts of this states that, "Anything that you allow them to copy, you know, they're going to take good care of, and get it back to you. NW: Well, this is already a copy of a copy. JL: OK, all right. NE: But, you know what? This black copy looks better, it looks better than the brown one that I took it, you know, that it was taken from. JL: Well, thanks for bringing that and we'll make sure that we write down anything that you brought, on this form. 1VIF: Well, this is supposed to be put together because see, this is the names of the people on the back. JL: OK, good. NT: And I should've put it together, but I haven't. JL: When we met the other day for them to kind of tell us how to do this. One of the ladies, Cliff Groce's mom brought yearbooks and I realized, I've been teaching 20 years now, that they used to have all class pictures, I forgot. And, we don't do class pictures anymore. I think that's so sad. So, we're going to start asking the photographer, which I'm sure he'll do, because, you know they're going to make money off of it, but I would 3 love to have class pictures again. And, that's what's fun at all these reunions, to see everybody standing by each other and so forth. MF: This was probably taken... I must have been, I don't know if I was in the first, second or third grade. That was a long time ago. JL: It's just so fun to look at and like, when you said that you were looking through one of the books, and Bart says, "Well, this verifies everything that I'm talking about." You know, that's so exciting. MF: Oh, this is great, oh it's great. ?: I'm the last one down there. JL: And see, y'all were sitting at your desks. I think that's cute. ?: That's wonderful. JL: OK. Are ya'll about ready to get started, then? Lauren's going into the seventh grade, is that right? Into junior high. OK, as we start, we'll go around the room, and Amber, even though you may not have a lot of stories form the 1920's and '30s to add, you can state your name and who your mom is and you know, a little bit about yourself, and then we'll go to Ms. Boughton, and just go around. And, one of the things that you might want to tell, is like where you were born, and when you came to College Station, or your family, and some of you may have taught, you might want to tell about that. Just briefly, just to kind of get the tape going. And this way, she'll get used to your voice so when she tries to transcribe it. State your full name, and one thing that would really help, is if you talk about your brother or your mother or your father, at least the first time you state it, state their name, so we can get this all very accurate for the end product. We talked about talking one at a time, and I know it's going to be hard, because as Ms. 4 Boughton's talking, it's going to trigger stories that you want to say, but if you just wait, I'll come to you, OK? All right, thank you very much. OK, Amber? AG: My name is Amber Elizabeth Ginther, Pickett Ginther. My mother is Theresa Pickett. Her mother, my grandparents, lived at the corner of Jane Street and University, and their names were Michael and Elizabeth Renghofer. In fact, they had ... growing up they had several houses on that corner as well as when, before I was conscious enough to know that area. They also had some farm land down in the Valley. And, they had a dairy farm as I understood it. I've spent a lot of summers up here, and grandmother always gardened, she was known for her gardening. And Granddad, Michael Renghofer, worked at the university, Texas A&M University, for 30 or 35 years. And, planted a lot of the trees leading to the University and was very proud of that. Every time we came up, he came and showed me all the trees he planted. So, they lived there basically until they died just about. And, the house was moved to Tomball about 4 years ago when it was sold and the Black -eyed Pea was built there. I was born in Houston, Texas and I live there now. JL: That's great! She did an excellent job. OK, thank you. Mrs. Boughton? PB: I'm Patsy Bonnen Boughton. And I was born in Bryan, Bryan Hospital, and my parents were Mr. and Mrs. C. A. Bonnen. They lived at 201 Lee Avenue in College Station, not when I was born, but they were in a little rent house when I was born. They built their house on Lee in 1936. And, let's see, what else did you want to know? JL: Well, you might want to tell about the city council. PB: Well, first of all, my mother and dad came here in 1927 from... They were originally from Illinois, but my dad had taught at, in South Dakota, in Brookings, South Dakota for a couple of years. And then Mr. Gabbard brought him here to Texas A&M to 5 the Agricultural Experiment Station which later, these men became the Agricultural Economics Department. My dad spent 15 years on the A &M Consolidated School Board, and then, later when the University people had to get off the city council, he spent three years on the city council, because he was already 75 years old and retired from the University, and they needed people real badly because the University people couldn't run for elected offices there for a few years until they got the state constitution changed. And, then later on I spent 10 years on the city council after my husband was retired from the military and we came here permanently to live. I went to A &M Consolidated High School, or went all the way from first grade through high school at A&M Consolidated. And, later went to Texas State College for Women which is now Texas Women's University, graduated from there. I was six years on the College Station Swim Team. Swam competitively for those six years. That was the very first swim team. When I became a member of the swim team, that was the very first swim team that was started by Art Adamson, who was asked to teach the swim lessons for the children of College Station. They had never had that before. And when he started those, he was asked by the recreational council, which they didn't have a parks department in College Station at that time, they probably only had maybe ten employees of the city, total. I don't know about that, but very few. And, the recreation council was formed, and they, more or less started the Little League and activities like that for the children. And then they decided they wanted swim lessons and they asked Art to do that. So he started out with, I don't remember how many children there were, but there were just two classes: it was the beginners and the advanced. And those that could swim across the pool by themselves were in the advanced class. And, that was before the Red Cross program and all that. Later on, the advanced class became the swim team. And that was how we got started and it was really a very interesting experience for us. And the pool, the only pool we had was the P.L. Downs Natatorium, and that was the only one in the whole, as far as I know, well, no, before that there was a swimming pool in the basement of the YMCA. And, that's where, I don't remember that at all. I don't think it even existed after I was swimming and all. But, my two older brothers and my older sister, they all started swimming in the YMCA pool. JL: And what were there their names? PB: It was Jim, Jim Bonnen, and Jerry Bonnen, and Mary Anne Bonnen. And, then I have another older sister, Marty Bonnen, and then I have a younger brother, David Bonnen. And, my sister, Mary Ann, her last name is O'Mara now, married to Bill O'Mara. And my sister Marty was married to Bill Dixon who has since died, and she is a widow, now. JL: OK, thank you Mrs. Boughton. Is it Pfannstiel? SP: Pfannstiel. I'm Shirley Barron Pfannstiel, and I live in College Station. I went the first three years of A &M Consolidated at Wellborn. Wellborn at one time had eleven grades and they gradually diminished. When it closed, they had three grades. But I went to that school, with the same teacher, Mrs. Laura Eidson, for all three grades. And then, we were part of A &M Consolidated school. Then in the school year of'40 -'41, I began, along with my classmates of the same grade, going to the campus here. The new campus of the white buildings in `40 -'41. As far as my background before that, I was born in Burleson County. My father was Joe Barron, a farmer. My mother, Lillian Barron, a former teacher. And, then when my mother died when I was a year old, I came to live with my aunt and uncle in Wellborn, Minnie and J.D. Williams. So back to Consolidated School, I finished here in 1947. I did have three older brothers who finished here. When they went to school, it was on the campus of course, Texas A &M campus. Their names were Joe ,Weldon, and Charlie Barron. After I left Consolidated, I went to Sam Houston for a Bachelor's in Art, and to the University of Houston for a Master's in Administrative Education. I taught school several years, in Boling and Bay City, Texas, and in Mason, Michigan. What may be different about me and some of you, is that I have four children who went to school here and finished here. Their names are David, Kerry, Robin, and Diana. The interesting thing about the oldest one's graduating, is that his ceremony was in Guion Hall, on the A &M campus, where the earlier high school and eighth grade graduations had been, where my older brothers had had their A &M graduation ceremonies and their commissioning ceremonies. Afterward, I left here and married Daniel C. Pfannstiel, whose lifetime career was in the Texas Agricultural Extension Service, of which he was director, and who later was professor at Texas A &M. Patsy mentioned the College Station Recreation Council. I did serve two terms on that, and was chairman of the art program, and served as Secretary.. JL: Thank you very much. Is it Franze? MF: Frame. I'm Maryanna Hensarling Franze. And I was born in Wellborn, Texas to George Hensarling and Katie Robinson Hensarling in 1922. And I went to that same three room school house, I mean, one room, three grade school house that Shirley did, and Ms. Laura Eidson was my school teacher. And when I was in the fourth grade I rode a bus to College Station, and I believe our school was a former A&M building, college building, and it was at the end of what's now Joe Routt, I don't know if it's the end, but... s PB: If I could interject there, that I believe, what grade were you in? MF: I was in the fourth. PB: There was a.. . MF: It might have been a school building in the first place. PB: No, it was built, it was an A &M building, and it was the... it later became the. . .No, it may have been built for the school, I don't know, but I think it had been used for something else. And it was a two story building? Do you remember that? And it was right there in the corner by the Corps dorms. There where the road goes like this, you know, and then it goes on past the Memorial Student Center. But, it was right there where you turn, is that right? That's where I went to first and second grade. Like Shirley said, in 1940, `41, 1940, we moved to the new campus which were the little white huts, and the individual grades, and I was in third grade, then. And then the high school on campus... MF: It really was a condemned. PB: It was condemned at the time we were in it, I mean, I wasn't in it, but one of my older brothers was in there. And it was Pfeuffer Hall. JL: That was Mrs. Boughton. PB: Yes, I'm sorry. JL: Now, Mrs. Franze? MF: Now, where do I go now? JL: And you graduated from... MF: And I graduated from, well I had two graduations. I graduated from the, we had a graduation from the eighth grade, too. And then I graduated from the high school at 9 Guion Hall in 1940. That was the same time that the campus was moved over here, and frankly I can not remember if I went to school here, or if that was the end, you know, over there. And then the summer that I graduated, I went to a drama school in Houston, and took what required courses, you know, that were required, and well I ended up with a career in Comptometry, which you probably don't know what it is. And it's obsolete now, they don't even have them anymore. But I worked for HEB grocery company in Corpus Christi for sixteen years. JL: OK, com... how did you say it? NV: Comptomete. JL: What is that? NE: Well, when those went obsolete, they went to 10 - key adding machines. It multiplies, divides, adds. And of course you have to have speed, which I did not have to start with. But HEB was very considerate, and I enjoyed it. SP: You have to be very accurate. NW: Yes, you have to be very accurate. AG: I'd like to interject one thing of funniness, when I found out what HEB stood for: Harry E. Butt, so they had to change the name to HEB! W: That's not what it stands for. Howard. AG: That's a joke I've always heard. NT: Yeah, there was always lots of jokes about this. About HEB. They were a wonderful company to work for. AG: They are. They have a good store. 10 MF: I have retired from there and they really take care of their retirees. We have a camp every summer for four or five days, somewhere real nice. And then, we have area meetings that are three times a year and a dinner meeting in San Antonio once a year. And the last few years he's given each of us seniors $100. Last year we got $200. Very generous. JL: When did you come back to College Station? MF: I came back to College Station in `81 from Corpus Christi when I retired. My husband had retired earlier, and I would like to have not moved back quite so quick, but he retired and wanted to move back, so ... and we had a son here and, then one in Houston, so we were between the two. And that made it nice to be back home. We didn't plan to move back to College Station, but it worked out and it's fine. We live out at Wellborn where my mother stays. JL: OK. SP: May I add something about her wonderful mother? Her mother was my Aunt, Katie Hensarling who taught 2nd grade here at that new school with the white wooden buildings. She and Miss Laura Eidson, who had been the 1 st grade teacher when they finally closed the Wellborn school, were the two 2nd grade teachers that year. Her mother had also taught at Peach Creek school, which is part of the same system. JL: OK, thank you. PB: Could I say one more thing? Was Mary Beth Winkler in your class? MF: Yes. PB: She told me something which I did not realize that... you were saying you couldn't remember whether you ever went to the new high school.. . 11 MF: I don't know if I went one year and then graduated or... PB: Well, let me tell you what Mary Beth told me. I always thought that we, everybody moved off campus at the same time, which was the starting of school in 1940. But, Mary Beth said that you all moved over here, I think she said in the mid term of your senior year. So, you actually were a half year in the new building. This is what she told me. JL: We might want to look in there later to see if that would be in there. PB: I can't remember whether they said anything about that in here or not. I don't think so. Until Mary Beth told me that, I used to play golf when I came back here when my husband was in Vietnam the first time, Mary Beth was a widow, her husband was killed in an airplane crash. He was in the Air Force and this tanker plane crashed and he lived for, I think a couple of weeks before he died. And, she was back here living next door to my mother and dad and her parents lived across the street from my mother and dad so... JL: And what was his name? Her husband, Mary Beth's? PB: Beasley JL: OK, Beasley. PB: Jack Beasley. JL: Jack Beasley? Oh. MF: So, she was a junior when I was a senior. Mary Beth was. PB: Oh, is that right? Oh, I was thinking ... she graduated in `41, then. MF: Yes. The reason I know that, I was sitting here looking at the yearbook. 12 PB: Well, maybe you didn't, then. It was her senior year, I think she said, so maybe they moved off after we did. I was thinking it was... Well, I can't remember. MF: Here's Jack. He signed my... PB: That's right. He was a graduate also, here. MF: But he hadn't lived here long, had he? Do you remember about him? PB: I was not aware of him, so I think he came here later in school. JL: Thank you, Mrs. Boughton. Anything else, Mrs. Franze? MF: Well, since Shirley brought up what she did, I'm glad she did because my mother did teach here and she taught Peach Creek and then she taught in Sugarland and wanted to teach in Corpus Christi to be close to us, but she had allergies just like I do, and she came down there and applied, and when they called her, she decided that she couldn't take the wind, so she didn't teach at Corpus and that was the end of her career. JL: OK, Mrs. Pickett? TP: Do you have a sister that worked for Judge Amis? SP: I don't think so. TP: No? You look like her. SP: I have sisters named Lillian and Mary Anna. MF: She had a Mary Anna, and when those sisters named their daughters Mary Anna, they thought we'd never end up in the same house. TP: We gave her Amber, and now every other child in the city has the name. AG: That's right. MF: But we have both ended up in Corpus Christi. But we didn't go to the same churches, or anything like that. 13 JL: OK, thank you. That was Mrs. Franze. All right Mrs. Pickett, will you tell us about yourself? TP: My name is Theresa F. Pickett. Renghofer. My mother and my father came to Texas from Pamhagen, Burgenland, in the `20's. And, my father worked for the Texas A &M University System for many years. He died in `82. My mother, bless her heart, was a genius cook, a beautiful mother, a wonderful friend and an active worker, and she died in 1984. My husband of twenty -six years, I consider that my married life, died in 1984. He left me with Amber Elizabeth, a graduate of the University of Houston, Cum Laude, and I'm very proud of her. I have lived in Houston since 1965, I consider this my home, but I'm so locked into the open city, that I just stay there. It's so pretty. It really is a beautiful city. I am a graduate of A&M Consolidated High School, the Class of 1949 of which I am very proud. We were a working class of young men and young women who worked together as an excellent team. We had a winning football season on the field here at Consolidated, and off the field, and we were just a winning team. And I am very proud to say that A &M Consolidated High School was my school. JL: Well, I think you all have already answered the first ten questions. NE: Everybody that has talked has made me think of something that I wanted to ask them, and now I don't know what it is. Now, you mentioned Gabbard. Which one? PB: Their father was... Well, there was Mildred and Letch Gabbard, and then there was Jim Gabbard and Dexter Gabbard. MF: And Jim was the doctor. PB: Jim was the doctor in Corpus Christi, Texas. 14 MF: And when my husband had bypass surgery he was on his team of doctors. And he is such a guy. TP: Heart surgery, yes, I had CVT bypass on April 5, 1996. PB: He himself had like five bypasses. MF: Yes, he really did. I was trying to keep up with that for a while. PB: And he lived a couple years after that, and then he had a, I think he had a massive heart attack and I think they rushed him to Houston. MF: Someone said that... PB: But he didn't make it. MF: When I told them that at work the day before, I didn't want it to be a big production about my husband having surgery, so I hadn't said anything. And I just said that my husband has a bypass surgery tomorrow, and I need the day off, so... they said, "Oh, you're going to Houston ?" I said, "No, We're going to Memorial, over here at Corpus Christi." And they had a good team. PB: Oh, yeah. I can imagine if Jim was on it, it was. MF: He was an excellent surgeon. And he doesn't take medicine, he has never had a bit of trouble. And, you know, I hear people having bypass surgery now and just not ever getting over it. PB: They have a good team here now, at St. Joseph's. Bruce Gabbard had Bypass surgery here at St. Joseph's. And I have never seen anybody get over that kind of surgery as quickly as he did. I mean, I was ... he didn't have any real.. . ---------------------- - - - - -- incomplete due to end of tape 1--------------------------------------- PB: It seems like Miss. St. Clair also taught orchestra. 15 SP: Maybe she did. TP: And, but it was only... seems like it was only for about a year or two. MF: You know, Mrs. Sprague was the music teacher I was trying to think of the name of And, my goodness, she couldn't have left seven years ago. PB: But Colonel Dunn, he had it pretty much for the rest of the time I was in there. And, we started orchestra in fifth grade, is that right? That sounds about right. PB: I believe that is right, in fifth grade, and then we were all together from fifth grade through twelfth, eleventh or twelfth, whatever it was at that time. And, we all played together. They must have had some sort of music... orchestra or something, because I remember Alice Silvey played the violin and... PB: Well, they've had the orchestra for many, many years and it wasn't until my junior year in high school that Colonel Dunn started the band (Jan 1948). And, I played the violin. My family, we all started on the violin except my younger brother, David. And, Jim, Jerry, Mary Ann, Marty and I all played the violin. And then Jerry was the only one who changed. He was the second one in the family. He changed to the trombone somewhere along the line. So then, when David started, he played the trombone from the beginning. That was my younger brother. But, the thing that happened was, Colonel Dunn, in my junior year in high school started this orchestra, I mean the band. And he knew we had a trombone in the family. And, this was before, must have been before David got started, and he asked me if I would try the trombone. He knew I didn't enjoy the violin. I hated it! I have kind of short, stubby fingers anyway, and I didn't have that 16 dexterity that I needed. And oh, I got along all right, but I just really didn't enjoy it. And, so he asked me if I would try the trombone. I was so delighted to get off that violin. And I loved the trombone, it was great!. And, I played it for a year and a half. It was the middle of my junior year that we started it, so... I thought I'd see. JL: Ms. Pfannstiel, is there something that you wanted to add about the music? SP: Yes, I could add a little bit more. We put... the seventh and eighth grades seemed to have the responsibility for putting on music programs to entertain the rest of the school. I remember we put on an operetta over at Guion Hall. And then, in the school gymnasium, we did programs like Easter parades and things like that. Talent shows in there. I was going to say what a good teacher Mrs. Culpepper was. Did you happen to remember her for Social Studies? PB: She was our homeroom teacher in the seventh grade, I think. SP: And under her, I was Daniel Webster in the Webster/ Haines debate, and I was Ouida Ferguson, Jim Ferguson's daughter, when we tried him and he was impeached as Governor of Texas, but our class voted not to impeach him. - Touch& SP: Then, let's see what else, Oh! I have a few notes about former teachers here. You said you wanted a little on them? JL: Right. SP: I just thought of a few names. One of the good things about coming back here in 1955, and we've come back two other times since then, is that we had so many teachers, former teachers, living in the community who were in our activities, clubs, and so on. 17 And, I probably won't remember all of them at this moment. I can give you two names now, I just gave you Mrs. Nance, formerly Hanover. And another one, Mrs. Landiss, is still living. She taught me three years of high school home economics. And, another one living is Mrs. Duncan, who was the librarian. TP: Oh, yes. SP: So, those would be good sources. JL: OK, great. PB: And wasn't Mrs. Duncan our English teacher, also? SP: I think she also taught English. PB: English and history, yes. SP: I think she taught English. PB: And, I believe it was literature, generally, wasn't it? SP: Yes, I think so. PB: Because the other one taught grammar, and oh, she was a real staunch teacher. SP: You know, I can't remember her. Who? Which one? TP: She's in that book right there on the table. JL: Were the teachers' husbands professors at A&M? Or going to A &M and they were supporting their husbands or... - Many of them were professors wives, and, but then... 18 Especially after WWII, there were so many veterans going back to school and they were married, and a lot of them were the students. The veteran students going back to A&M. JL: What kind of clubs and sports did ya'll have? - Well, we had a ... JL: Well, we've talked about sports already, but what kind of clubs? We had a press club, and a dramatic club. JL: What did the press club do? I don't know, there we are, that was the whole group. That's the yearbook. The school paper, newspaper. Oh yeah, the newspaper. JL: What was the name of the newspaper? When I was in high school, it was called... The Tiger Rag. SP: When I was in high school I believe it was the Roundup. I was the senior reporter for that one. That's right. MF: And the Shorthorn in College Station School became... Oh, well the Shorthorn. . That's the annual. MF: That's the annual, well OK. Well, Francis Coulter was the editor -in- chief, and I was the assistant editor, and Jack Beasley was our business manager, and Doug Lancaster 19 was our business manager, and Lib McNew was literary editor. Denton Taylor and Peggy Medina, Bobby Hughes, Henry Gilchrist and Mary Beth Gandy, and Joe Holmgreen. JL: Thank you, Mrs. Franze. Were you in any of the clubs in this yearbook? In this yearbook? I was in the choir. MF: Oh, we had a good... What year did Alka Paney graduate? She was in the Bryan High School. She was in the Bryan, that is why she's not in the yearbook. MF: We had a good Home Economics club. Yes, excellent. JL: Did ya'll compete in Four H shows? MF: None that I remember, I just remember that my last thing I did in Home Economics was make an angel food cake. And it was beautiful. Good. - I love angel food cake. MF: I don't think I've ever made one since. Well, I make them now, but I make them from a box. That's all right. My mother used to make those angel food cakes. SP: The home economics club when I was in it was called the Future Homemakers of America. Is it still? Yes. 20 SP: And during one year, a fellow classmate wrote the words for a song for them. And I was among a group of a few girls who went over and sang it over the air on the radio station, WTAW, which was on campus at the System Administration building at that time. The person who wrote the song was Lou Ann Smith. I had forgotten that. That was great! She was a PB: She was in my class. SP: And the music was written by Mrs. Ford Munnerlyn. Ford Munnerlyn. SP: ... Who was very important to our school. She wrote.. . She wrote the 12th man. SP: Well, she wrote the 12th man for Texas A&M, but for our school, our school song. Oh! She wrote the school song. She wrote the school song. SP: Lil Munnerlyn. Mrs. Ford Munnerlyn. How do you spell her last name? SP: M- U- N- N- E- R- L -Y -N. Her son is a minister, I believe. Is that correct? I believe you are right. SP: Her daughter who was so popular in school, died. Mary Munnerlyn. Jack Morris, my goodness. 21 JL: Ms. Pfannstiel, I think you're the only one, if I remember correctly, who taught during that period. I was just curious as a teacher, and we have talked about this before, what was the hardest thing about teaching during those days? SP: It was so easy compared to now. We wondered if it was based on discipline... SP: Oh, no. My first school was on the Texas Gulf Coast, and we had about one -third Latin Americans. I was the art and speech teacher. I taught spelling and homeroom. Whatever I taught anywhere, even as the health and science teacher in Bay City, or the fourth grade, everything but P.E. and music, in Michigan, I taught spelling no matter what. JL: Oh, OK. That was your strength. SP: Well, no, that's the way it was. I'm going to tell you, though, in case you need them? Mrs. Blumberg taught a few years as an Algebra teacher, and another important name, and this one is still living, is Mrs. Fleming. The interesting thing about her, is that she taught me and my four children. She taught me science, I think biology in high school, and I think she taught my children reading in elementary, here. JL: It would be fun to get these teachers who are still here with you all in an interview as the stories could come up and... TP: As a curriculum, when I was in school, I think we had to have four years of English. We had to have two years of a foreign language, either Spanish or French, and what else? Algebra, Geometry, Calculus, Trigonometry, and Calculus, I don't know what, but they were made part of the requirement and... Well, now we weren't required to take the advanced math. 22 Not the advanced. I think that possibly... You had to have... you had to take.. . Four years of English, I know you had to have that. MF: Well, yes. I remember when they started to call it the new math. `Cause I had to -- Our kids got that. NT: Well, my brother, just older than me was ahead of me, but he had to come back and take it, and we were in the same class together and we thought that was fun. Yes. Quite different today. MF: I can't even balance my checkbook every time, nowadays, and I made high grades in math, but that's just a memory. JL: Thank you, Mrs. Franze. Mrs. Pfannstiel? SP: You're calling this Early Education. How far back is this supposed to go? JL: Well, they had talked ... we can go as far back, because they're going to have all of this in the book, but they had focused on the '20s, `30's and `40's. SP: Not recent, then, stop with about the `40's, because... there have been teachers who have taught since then, but you just want it about through the `40's. JL: I'm sure any information you'll put in there, they'll be glad to have. SP: Well, Mrs. Orr was a teacher here, and she just died a few years ago. Can you think of some more? There were so many teachers, I just ran into them everywhere living here in College Station. MF: Well, when we had our reunion in `93,1 didn't realize at the time that there was a whole table, big round table, of just teachers. 23 JL: Oh, how fun. UP You know, and I would have loved to have know that ahead of time, yeah. But, you know, Paul Edge was our Superintendent. You remember him. - I remember him. Of course I was down in Corpus Christi. JL: About how many were in your graduating class, Mrs. Franze? MF: Oh, I counted that last night and it was `47 maybe? I don't know. JL: OK. TP: How big was our class? PB: Only about 34. TP: We had 34? TP: Oh, that's good. I'm glad we had that number. SP: The class I finished with had in the 30's, but the class I was usually with had two sections, so that was maybe over 50. SP: Well, I think it was 40 something. 48 or something. MF: 32 and 5 is 37, and not 47. JL: What about drop out rates. Did kids drop out a lot, and... They did. TP: No, they didn't. My class continued four years. JL: What were some of the reasons, Mrs. Franze? MT: Well, I really don't know. In fact, I go to senior citizens now with a guy that says he remembers me, and I don't remember him. Of course, he says he dropped out. JL: To work? NV: He didn't say what for or what grade. 24 Did the men drop out to go work on the farm, or join the Army since the war was going on, or was it more women that were dropping out? SP: I don't know about the dropouts, I was going to say how easy it was for boys to go to college here. With Texas A&M there, they did not have to worry about living expenses so most of them... JL: The boys went on to college. Thank you, Mrs. Pfannstiel. There was, back when we were in school it was more likely that, I mean a big percentage of the kids were children of A&M professors. Now, there were others, you know, the ones that came from Wellborn and outer areas that were in the rural areas, but even some of them, their parents were connected with the University. NW: I remember both my brothers joined the Navy right out of high school. PB: Well, mine did, my two older brothers did too, but that was because W.W.II was going on, and when they graduated... NW: I don't think they had a choice. PB: No, they, well, they had a choice, but.. . NW: I don't know, maybe they did. PB: Yeah, they did, I mean if they hadn't joined the Navy, they probably would have been drafted into the Army, you know, but they did choose to join the Navy, and my brother, Jim joined the, signed up for the V -12 program, which was the... And then later he only went one semester on the V -12, and then he was later, transferred into the Naval ROTC. So, he was in the Navy for 4 years, and ended up, well, maybe it wasn't quite 4 years, but 2 '/z to 3 years of that he was in school. And he could have gotten a degree, a college degree. He was on the speed up program during W.W.II, but they were more 25 interested in engineering in the Navy, so he had to take a certain amount of Engineering courses, and he was not interested in that. He took that, and then they could take any courses they wanted after the required courses. And he took all kinds of courses. He was interested in so many different things. And, then he came back from W.W.II, and went to A &M for I think 3 more years. And, so he graduated from A &M with, I don't know how many hours, but it was well over 200 hours. Well rounded young man. PB: It was close to 300 hours, I think, but anyway I think he had a record there with the number of hours he graduated with JL: And which brother was this? PB: This was my oldest brother Jim. JL: Okay, thank you. PB: And then he later went to Duke University and got his masters and went to Harvard and got his Doctorate. ?: He liked school. PB: We were all accusing him of being, what do you call it? A professional student. AG: You know, that's interesting. She seems to think that most of the people that went to school here were sons and daughters of the people that were part of the university. But coming here as a grandchild of someone who owned property here, I thought everybody who lived in College Station was basically immigrated from Germany or Czechoslovakia. I mean all we visited were the Vitopils and the Martins and everyone spoke German and Czech and it was like they all knew each other from the same villages. It seemed like a 26 highly close Germanic farming community more than anything else. Especially in the outlying areas. ?: Where did you say the Renghofer property was? TP: It was where the Black -eyed Pea is today. AG: Jane Street and University. Remember when Jane Street was a gravel road and there was a little white house on one side, and another one on the other, I think the other one had a chain link fence... ?: Well, see, the Cooners used to live over there. ?: That's right. AG: Yeah, right. ?: Somewhere over in that vicinity. AG: And that..who was that house that grandma rented to? Was that Mrs ..... the lady that lived there forever in the rental house next door? TP: Oh, Mc Dugal or Mc Donald. AG: Yeah, she had three houses, and I think she had four, but she sold one to the bank. The bank came in first. TP: And the bank is right there on the corner. AG: Well, actually they owned the land all the way into the Valley, when they first got here where that big hotel is. But that sold off. ?: Now when you mention the Valley, what do you mean? TP: All the back property going out to the freeway and... AG: Well you know, where the big hotel is. 27 NV: You know, before I knew, I mean I was born and raised here. I lived, when I lived in Corpus Christi they talked about the valley well it was the Rio Grande valley. Then we moved on down there for four years and I was real acquainted with the Rio Grande valley. And then I came back here and they called this Brazos Valley and I had never heard that. AG: Brazos River valley is good farmland. NV: I know it, I know it, but we called it ... I don't know what we called it. SP: We called it the Brazos bottom... NV: That's right! We called it the Brazos Bottom. That's just what we called it. AG: And he had bottom land and then he had his house up on a little hill, and then he had the little dairy farm I guess. I don't remember any of this, because it was all gone by the time I was born. TP: Since then it has developed into what it is today. ?: All businesses. TP: Business, business, business. AG: Like Grandma and Grandpa's house was just torn down about eight years ago, something like that. Actually, it wasn't torn down, it was funny because... TP: It was moved. AG: It was moved to Tomball. Somebody bought the house and moved it. W: Did you know a lot of the houses that are on the outskirts of Wellborn, older ones, are houses that were moved off the campus. AG: I believe that because Granddad used to walk to work on campus; it was only caddie -corner from A&M. 28 NV: When they built this entrance over here, well the Cooner twins and I were in the same grade. And I would go home with them lots of evenings and spend the night. And when they were building that entrance and the main building, we walked over the scaffolds and all that to go to school. AG: Being the youngest grandchild of them had a drawback in the sense that my grandparents were very old by the time I got to know them. And I always thought it would be neat to live in that house and go to A&M because it was only two blocks. MF: Yeah, but we walked from way over there past where the Renghofers were. AG: Okay, I see what you're saying. But back then that wasn't a long way. NV: No, it wasn't. NW: We walked everywhere. Like in Wellborn, see, it was three miles - -- course it seems like five or more now. Well, when I first started school, sometimes we would go in the wagon with the mules, a couple of mules and tie them to the fence at school until we got ready to go home if they didn't pull loose and go as far as they could. Sometimes we went horseback, but most of the time we walked. JL: What hours, Mrs. Franze, did you go to school? NW: Oh, who knows? I don't remember. JL: Were they ... were you there for eight hours? NE: Probably eight to three. JL: Probably similar to... ?: It's similar to ... I think. JL: And what months? ?: Nine months. 29 ?: We didn't start until like the third week in September. This was way back before we had air conditioning, you see, and it was probably hot. ?: Longtime ago. ?: But then we would go until like... ?: I think it was like 3:15, 3:00 or 3:15 because I could get off the bus and walk home without getting on the bus and get home before dark. UP Our school house is the Wellborn Community Center now. JL: Well okay, I didn't know that. MF: The stage is still there. MF: When I was in the 5th grade, Jack Marsh and I were the lead kids in the trip around the world. And that was a beautiful, fun pageant. When I moved back here I thought well, I'm going to make an appointment with him someday because he's a doctor, you know. And I thought well, I'm going to make an appointment and go and visit. I've been back sixteen years and I haven't done it, so I'm probably not going to. JL: Well maybe this will motivate you. MF: Maybe. I wonder if he remembers that we were the lead. JL: I bet he does. How did the teachers discipline the children? Did they sit in the corners with the dunce hats on? MF: I just don't think that the kids back then were as bad and disrespectful as nowadays. JL: So ya'll don't remember? MF: We probably had to go to the cloak room. Do you remember the cloak room? 30 SP: Yes, and do you remember the first grade? It was wash the mouth out with soap in the country school. In high school, just occasionally, you would hear of some boy being sent to the principal's office. And that's all you heard. AG: They were never seen again. SP: We did have some real bad writing in the restroom, I remember, when I was in Junior High. An older Junior High boy did the writing. JL: That's developed right on through, hasn't it? School holidays ... it says here, describe a typical Christmas holiday, but I wondered about Valentines Day at school. We don't do a lot of that anymore at our school. ?: We had Sadie Hawkins at our school. The dance? JL: What about Christmas Vacations? Did ya'll stay here? ?: Yeah, pretty much. JL: Families aren't spread out like they are today. MF: The main thing that I remember about Christmas Vacation is that when my youngest son was born in 1945. My mother was still teaching in Sugarland and my sister -in -law was expecting at the same time and we timed it and we timed it so that she came from Sugarland for her 2 weeks vacation just as we got out of the hospital. And we worked that real good. SP: The train became important here for a while. ?: The what? SP: The train from Houston and Dallas. And in Wellborn you could get on the train at say, 9:36 in the morning and come to College Station for 15 cents; for 25 cents you could go to Bryan from Wellborn. If you were careful, very fast in doing your business, you 31 could get back on the noon train. It would be just a couple of hours in the morning. But that train was still going in 1950, wasn't it? ?: Well, yes. In fact, A.... PB: Probably a year or two after that at least, because I used to ride the train back and forth to college and go from right here in College Station and ride to Dallas, I'd have to get the bus from Dallas to Denton to go to college and I would ah, that would be in September. Even the colleges even A &M would start in September and ah, my parents would always take me, you know, I mean we all; there was one year that mom, mom went up and picked up, this was when my two older sisters were in college and they brought the two girls, and a friend of theirs, Virgie Prewit, who was also an A&M Consolidated graduate; the three of them home from college with their belongings except -- except Virgie I believe had some of her stuff in storage up there at Denton. That was the way we used to go to college. I mean we had very few things, you know just a handful of clothes and just a few belongings, I can't even remember; I might have had, I guess I had a radio, you know, we didn't have a Victrola or anything and of course we didn't have stereos like they do today; we went with very few possessions. I can remember, we had a college laundry and they would do the sheets, the bed sheets and the towels I think, maybe, but we had this box, I don't know what it was made out of, it was lightweight but very hard, harder than the cardboard and it was about so long, and so wide, and about this deep (32 "xl6 "x5 ")and we used to send our clothes home to mom. This was before Laundromats. We'd mail our clothes home, she'd wash `em, and send `em back to us. JL: So the depots that were mentioned in Wellborn and College Station were important buildings then to the community? 32 MF: Well, you talking about the train, I could get on the train in Corpus Christi and meet that one in Houston... PB: That was the Sunbeam. MF: And come see my brother which was King Hensarling who was killed in a plane; not a flying plane, but he was responsible for covering up the nose of the plane, and the pilot had not put it on "safety" and it shot him in the face. Anyway, and I was working on the base there at night and they called me, told me, so then I got on that train at 12 and was in. I don't, I don't know if the body came on the same train I did or not but anyway, I remember making connections. That was the reason I was interested in the ... I know I have a picture somewhere, I know we took pictures of that. My grandson's interested in the Wellborn depot and ah, of course he graduated from A&M Consolidated. SP: Oh, I'm sorry—you asked about Christmas. That made me think of the train. I had an aunt, uncle, and brother down in Houston and they would usually come up here for Christmas; but I'd go back for a week or so, we'd spend some Christmas money and see the big city and then come back on the train. And it was often that way in summer or for a wedding or some other thing. We'd go to Houston and come back on the train. MF: I thought you were going to say Uncle Will worked for the produce company and brought us crates of fruit, probably the only time during the year that we had so much fruit. Apples and oranges... JL: When they gave you these questions, they said there's 30 of them, they said ya'll wouldn't get through half of it. Oh you've been so wonderful, you've gotten through them all! ?: We have been attentive. 33 JL: Yes, you have, and you've been very detailed, and ah, have answered 4 or 5 questions in 1 story. Thank you. Is there anything else you can think of that ah, you'd like to share or were there school projects that everybody participated in? I don't know if there were science fairs, or did ya'll do book reports? They did a lot of plays and musical activities, evidently. ?: We did. SP: We had a very strong junior high school, very good. And I mentioned Mrs. Parker, she was such a good English teacher, I felt when I got to high school I knew all about English already - - -I didn't have any more to learn! MF: Isn't Mrs. Mitchell still living? SP: Miss Mitchell is still living, yes. And Mrs. Burgess. MF: Mrs. Burgess was very ... we took a vacation with the class... JL: [cross -talk to someone about the spelling of LeUnes last name] ... I was a Webb before I got married, now it's LeUnes... - -END OF TAPE -- 34